Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Good or Bad? - Pikasprey

[Music] hello Internet users and welcome back to another video Sonic the Hedgehog is a series that everyone has at least heard of even though I've barely played or kept up with any of the official games in the past decade the internet will never let me forget when one comes out I don't know why it is but it doesn't matter if a Sonic game receives good bad or even middling reception I'm always gonna see people talking and making videos about them even years later however there has always been one Sonic game that I've been really curious about a game that was supposed to be a big deal but nowadays seems to have been forgotten by almost everyone of course I'm talking about Sonic the Hedgehog 4 where do I even begin with this game well the first thing you need to know is that it was an episodic release episode 1 was released in October 2010 in episode 2 came quite a bit later in May 2012 when episode 1 first came out I actually didn't hear too much about the game itself in fact I'd say that 99% of what I did hear about it was related to the controversy surrounding Sonic's design for whatever reason fans were very very angry that Sonic had green eyes and I know it sounds like I'm joking but I'm not I distinctly remember that there was an entire week where you could not go on the internet without seeing people complain about Sonic's eyes or see people complaining about the people complaining about Sonic's eyes can you even imagine that the internet being that upset over Sonic's appearance I sure am glad we never see things like that happen anymore but really though aside from that no one else had really said much about the game when episode 2 came around I think I was only even aware of it because people were annoyed that the WiiWare version was cancelled so today I'm gonna be taking a look at both episodes and seeing just what it is they have to offer I mean they titled this thing Sonic the Hedgehog 4 for crying out loud surely they wouldn't have done that for some half-hearted budget game right the name alone is setting some high expectations without wasting any more time let's get into it there isn't any story and hitting new takes you into the first act of the first zone right away though I can't say that this makes a very good first impression it's really hard to convey this in a video but the way sonic moves jumps and picks up speed just feels off obviously they wanted him to feel just like he does in Sonic 1 2 & 3 but it's not quite the same here it is most definitely a step backwards from those games I'm not trying to say if this plays like a bootleg or anything but when you go around saying that Sonic 4 is the sequel fans have waited 16 years for I think it's only natural for people to be picky with how it compares to the games that came before it I also think Sonic himself doesn't look too great I'd even say that he looks really out of place compared to everything else in the stage his animations aren't very good either just look at how he walks it looks so casual here in previous games he walks like he's actually on an adventure and ready to go fast in any second I also don't get why they didn't have him turn into a ball when he jumps it was such a simple and effective thing that was always done before but his jump here looks so cheap and ugly by comparison what makes this even worse is the fact that they actually did have him turn into a ball when using the spin - I really don't understand what they were thinking with this and unfortunately the first time I saw him run at full speed I genuinely thought for a second that the game was glitching out another major problem I have is with the homing attack when you're in the air and close to something you can hit the game will display a target along with a sound cue which will allow you to hit the jump button again and dash towards it most of the time it works just fine but there were a few occasions where it just didn't there were times when I use the homing attack on either a spring or an enemy and it clearly just didn't work the way it was supposed to just by going through the first few levels the lack of Polish is incredibly apparent regardless of what's in this game's title it clearly needed at least a little more time in the oven with that being said though I didn't think that the game was unplayable or anything like that and the splash hill zone is your standard first area in Sonic it's not very complicated to get through it is pretty forgiving when you make a mistake I had a handle on the games clunkiness I actually managed to have a little bit of fun with it this definitely isn't the grand revival of 2d sonic that they wanted it to be but looking at it as a small download only game I guess I can see how someone could get some enjoyment out of this continuing on with that mindset I became a little bit more optimistic about seeing the rest of episode 1 and then I got to the casino levels this area is without a doubt one of the worst sonic zones I have ever played act one has a bunch of pinball machine sections the flippers though feel extremely awkward enter a prime example of where the game is rough around the edges it's also not always clear where you're even supposed to go like it doesn't even seem like there's meant to be many obstacles this entire level just feels like it was made to waste your time act 2 as a few parts where the level design does a poor job of communicating when you're supposed to slow down and platform carefully up until now it seemed like everything was trying to encourage you to go as fast as possible at all times and if you miss some jumps the worst that would happen is that you'll fall down to a section of the stage with a slower route but here you're suddenly punished for expecting that the game just suddenly changes its rules and you're forced to learn this the hard way at the very least the game hands out a lot of extra lives here but that doesn't stop this from taking what little fun there was out of it act 3 is a slow boring level where at times you need to blast from cannon to cannon to figure out where to go and it was with this stage where I finally lost all hope for Sonic 4 you see this game has a problem where some of its automated sections require you to be psychic by automated I'm refering to the times when sonic either bounces off of a spring or goes through a booster usually the game will have him run along a certain surface without much input from the player being required and that makes sense since because you're moving very fast you can't immediately react to obstacles however there were a couple of points in the stage where unless you knew to either hold a specific direction or no direction at all when going off of a spring you'll just fall in lose a life the idea of casino stages has been a long-running tradition in sonic but here they're implemented in the laziest way possible with no charm at all it's as if someone was just following a checklist when making them and didn't care if it was actually fun to play I hated these stages so much that I was very tempted to just stop playing then and there but unfortunately I kept going the rest of the game isn't much better there is the lost labyrinth zone and the mad gear zone well not nearly as bad as the second zone they certainly aren't without problems every stage has their own little gimmick for instance one has you balancing on boulders while another has Sona carrying a torch to light things up as you go and during one of the mad gear stages there is a literal wall of death chasing you as you go forward while these aren't necessarily bad ideas you still have to deal with unrefined gameplay and awkward level design like I just don't understand why they thought it was fair to put hazards in places where you can't even react to them unless you know they're there beforehand this game isn't even that hard it's just obnoxious to play most of the time there were too many moments where I just died and it felt really unfair even when I got to the end of a level it never felt satisfying I was only glad that it was over it's not an exaggeration to say that after playing the first zone getting through the rest of episode 1 was just a giant chore next I want to talk about the boss fights there are bosses at the end of every zone however the only thing remarkable about them is how unremarkable they are you just wait to hit Eggman in his generic egg-mobile when he's vulnerable the fights can all be finished in a matter of seconds it's seriously a joke to even call these bosses the only exception is the final boss but that also has a few issues of its own for starters to even get to the final boss you first need to refight the four previous bosses all in a row again not difficult but just kind of annoying and unnecessary once done Eggman will jump into this big robot what I hate about this part is that it's incredibly drawn-out once you figure out what to do it's not difficult to dodge its attacks at all but you have to stand around waiting for it to land again several times and to make it even worse at the end it will suddenly use an attack that will make the floor fall apart making you lose instantly unless you just know to be on the right side of the arena to land the finishing blow as he does this you'll be forced to start over after already being several minutes into the fight you cannot tell me that this is fair once done sonic will escape the egg station and strike a pose with all of his animal buddies the game then tells you to try again expecting you to now collect all of the Chaos Emeralds so I guess now would be a good time to talk about the special stages when you reach the end of a level with at least 50 rings a giant ring will appear for Sonic to jump into you'll then get to play a special stage where you need to guide Sonic by rotating the level around him along the way you'll need to collect rings to unlock barriers and extra time by reaching the end you'll earn one of the Chaos Emeralds the seven special stages have a set order and it doesn't matter what actor zone you were playing when you enter the big ring it all depends on how many Chaos Emeralds you have on the stage select screen you can replay special stages that you've already cleared but in order to get another chance at the one you're currently stuck on you'll have to continuously play through a level from the start making sure you always have 50 rings by the end since I'm making a video when trying to show as much as I can here I decided to go for every Chaos Emerald another reason I did this is because I wanted to see if my opinions would change if I replayed some of the levels with a different mindset when it comes to Sonic games I've always found that the levels are more enjoyable when you're given an incentive to replay them this way you learn where all the shortcuts and power-ups are making it a more satisfying experience however this was not the case with this game in fact I'd say that having to replay so many of these stages made me realize that they're even worse than I thought this turned into a game of searching for the 7 least insufferable levels to grind I cannot say that there was a single one that I genuinely loved playing from start to finish anyways when it comes to the special stages themselves they're actually the most functioning thing in the game the later ones though are very difficult and can be very infuriating to complete especially when you realize that making a single mistake means you'll have to play a level again episode 1 is a pretty short game that you can easily finish in a single sitting but getting all of the emeralds is going to take much more time to do the last few special stages were especially stressful to complete and I was really tempted to just give up so many times but with all the Chaos Emeralds finally collected you're given the game's biggest reward you unlock the ability to transform into supersonic when you have at least 50 Rings supersonic is invincible moves faster and jumps higher he's still limited to the speed of a lot of the stage gimmicks though so you can't even go that much faster most of the time anyway so congrats you no longer have any reason to play any of these levels ever again but if you want to you can play as supersonic for the second half of each stage I hope that seems worth it for you because for me it was a gigantic waste of time another thing that the emeralds do is unlock the true ending and by that I mean that the ending is exactly the same except when it shows a picture of Metal Sonic before displaying to be continued on the bottom and that's all you get all that extra hard work for a useless game mechanic and a small teaser for episode 2 for 100% completion this is incredibly underwhelming overall I think episode 1 is just a lifeless collection of levels with mediocre gameplay it's not the worst thing ever but in its best moments it's just a forgettable game whether you want to look at it as the sequel to Sonic 3 or is the small side game that it actually is I don't think there's anything here worth checking out after finally playing it for myself I completely understand why no one ever talks about this Sonic fan or not it's better left forgotten but we still have all of episode 2 to go through so let's see if they manage to make any improvements for this one so jumping into this game the difference between this in episode 1 is night and day Sonic both looks and plays so much better I cannot stress this enough going to this from the previous episode feels extremely satisfied to play again it's hard to explain since I can't just hand you the controller but this is a big improvement after only experiencing the first few levels it makes the entirety of episode 1 feel like some unfinished beta and when it comes to Sonic himself some of my earlier complaints have been addressed his walk now has some life to it and his jump surrounds him with a blue aura all the little things have come together here and he no longer looks like a cheap toy and I'm sure you've already noticed but something else that episode 2 gives us is tails and this game tails will always be following behind Sonic and at anytime you can press a button to perform a tag move by hitting the button while in the air you'll do the classic move or tails flies sonic around for a little bit but if you hit the button wall on the ground the two will perform a cartwheel that sends them speeding forward this is often used for dealing with some obstacles in certain areas I have to say that I think tails is a pretty great thing to have here his ability to carry you feels very limited in this game so it can't be abused to skip large portions of the level however if you miss a jump you can also just use him to quickly get yourself back on track I find this helps keep you from losing too much momentum and keeps the gameplay going fast there is also a multiplayer mode where someone can control tails while you play I'd love to tell you more about this but for some reason the game just refuses to acknowledge any inputs for a second player so I was unable to even try it no one else seems to be having this issue with the PC version though so I don't know what to say about it tails aside the overall level design is also much better this time around they were a lot smarter with how they positioned the enemies and hazards and it no longer feels like the game is constantly punishing you for trying to go fast if that being said though it's not perfect there were still a few times where I ended up running full-speed into an enemy and it felt kind of unfair however this is barely comparable to how awful it was in episode 1 something else that I really liked is that there are now literal signs for death pits it's such a simple but really smart thing it's a clear way to indicate to the player that you suddenly need to be careful with the upcoming platforms I'm not familiar with many of the newer games but I sense early hope that this was an idea they continued using episode 2 is pretty much the same length as a last game same amount of zones with the same amount of Acts unfortunately I think the boss fights in this one are its biggest flaw like the final boss of episode 1 all of them are incredibly drawn-out they're not difficult at all but you have to sit around for minutes just waiting to attack them then when you're at the end they'll use some sudden attack that will instantly kill you if you weren't prepared for it and then you have to start over from the beginning it seriously seems like they were just trying to pad out the playtime with every boss by design these fights are just here to drag on and waste time it trust me once you finish these you are never gonna have any desire to play them again special stages also return with the same requirement to reach them as before the stages themselves though are different this time you have to collect a certain amount of rings by every checkpoint once you've reached the end you'll get one of the Chaos Emeralds also like before you can access the special stages from the menu but you can only play the ones that you've completed it was at this point that I realized there was a stupid exploit you can do here when playing a special stage if you're about to reach a checkpoint and don't have enough rings you can just pause the game and hit retry to start again I know it sounds obvious when I say it like that but everything else in the game was telling me that I was supposed to only get one try that requires me to replay an entire level every time if they let you do this then it makes no sense to not let you just retry the stage from the menu this is so weird and backwards it doesn't even cost a life or anything and if you're wondering this apparently works for episode 1 as well really wish I knew that earlier because it would have saved me a lot of miserable hours the first 5 special stages are ok but the last 2 are absolutely agonizing to go through you can barely react to anything in these ones it's just a test of memorizing everything that's going to appear however I eventually did get it done once again collecting all of the emeralds like last time though completing all of the special stages takes way longer than just playing through the main as expected your reward is the ability to transform into supersonic whenever you have 50 rings sadly though using tails automatically cancels Sonic's transformation and since you have to use tails to progress through the levels at many points this means that supersonic is actually even more useless in this game something else that they tried to do for episode 2 was add a collectible unfortunately though they really didn't do much with this idea either every level has a hidden red ring for you to collect however the only thing you get for finding all of them is an achievement nothing else there's really no reason to even bother getting them once again going for a hundred percent in the game is just pointless at this point it's kind of hard to say much else about episode 2 it's not terrible but at the same time it's not very amazing either in my opinion it's pretty average for what it is there's nothing here that pushes the series forward in the way a real sequel should instead of focusing on innovation they just brought Sonic back to his roots in a very minimal way it's just more sonic for the sake of releasing more sonic I get the impression that they only made these two games because they saw how well new Super Mario Brothers was selling and wanted to do the same thing odds are you'll probably finish it in one or two sittings and never play it again I do think it's kind of a shame though because episode 2 is gameplay and visuals show a lot of promise it's just too short and lacking in content if this had been a full sized game and it brought a few more ideas to the table I honestly think that it would have been worthy of the name Sonic 4 but that's just not what happened here now before I in this video there is just one more unfortunate thing I need to talk about this game has something called episode metal which is only available if you purchased episode 1 on the same system what this is is for remixed ages from episode 1 where you play as Metal Sonic instead and if you can believe it they actually manage to make these levels even worse to have to play through remember how I was praising episode 2 for adding a visual cue for bottomless pits well for some reason they didn't bother putting those here while the same time adding even more pits this entire thing can also be finished in like ten minutes it's incredibly lazy bonus content they probably just tossed it in hoping it would help sell a few extra downloads of episode one and that was Sonic the Hedgehog for in the end it's not hard to see why both of these games faded into obscurity episode one is just an all-around bad game I wouldn't recommend it to anyone Sonic fan or not episode 2 makes a lot of improvements but still leaves a lot to be desired it's fun enough to spend an afternoon on but there isn't anything here that's gonna blow you away I also think that the way they titled these games did not do them any favors they should have called them something like Sonic revival in Sonic revival - these didn't need to be called Sonic 4 they only did that because they thought it would make it sell a bit better regardless of what the titles are though it doesn't change any of my issues with the games one is just bad and the other is just there I guess I got the answer I was looking for when I was curious about Sonic 4 but that's gonna be it for this video my name is Bo Caspari and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Pikasprey Yellow

Views: 219,230

Keywords: Gaming, Video Games

Id: vcjz8uw0s_I

Length: 21min 28sec (1288 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2020